Another free from Sun is no more

Once there was a way to open ODF (Open Document Format, read OpenOffice) docs in MS Office. You could get a free (as in beer) plugin from sun and open files. Not anymore.

Although the Oracle site still, at the time of writing, offers the software for free with the tagline “Get it now: FREE”, users clicking through will find that Oracle are now charging $90, per user, for a right-to-use license for the plug-in and offering support costing $19.80 per user for the first year. Oracle also requires a minimum order of 100 licenses, which means the minimum purchase is $9,000.

Pity….

P.S. if someone needs the last free version, send me an email or something

2 Thoughts on “Another free from Sun is no more”

Not a very auspicious start for Oracle’s custodianship of OpenOffice. On a bright note, M$ Office 2010 does include support for open document import and export. I do doubt though the quality of conversion is as good as that provided by openoffice (and the SUN ODF plugin).